Heinlein, Robert A. Job: A Comedy of Justice. 1984. Del Rey, 1985.
Job: A Comedy of Justice is the best of Heinlein’s late novels. It combines several of his famous story types: gadget story, boy meets girl story, human interest story, little tailor story, and man who learned better story. The gadget here is the multiple universe idea that would be the heart of his next two novels. But Job does it more subtly than, say, To Sail Beyond the Sunset. The best romantic stories are those that tell us something about the human condition. Here, we have a shipboard romance that morphs into Adam and Eve being kicked out of one garden or pit after the other. Like the Biblical Job, the hero is the brave little tailor. He challenges God and accomplishes unlikely heroic deeds. In the end, he becomes tha man who learned better, and surprisingly, for a Heinlein hero, learns that there are limits to what can be learned. When he finally meets the wise old man who knows everything, there are no comforting answers, except perhaps, that love helps. The satire on religion and middle-class smugness has never been sharper. Five stars.

מצחיק, חכם, מעביר ביקורת על מוסדות דת ותפיסות חברתיות, מעט מלאה

It's strange. I did not enjoy this book as much as the last time I read it about 20-25 years ago. I am guessing that part of it is because I listened to the audiobook this time and I did NOT enjoy the reader. His voice seemed out if place for much of it, at least in my opinion, and other than occasionally adding a southern drawl, many of the characters sounded alike. His reading also makes me think of someone whining continually.

Also, when I read this last, I think I was more of a religious rebel than I am today, and thus the book spoke more to me. Today, I see some of the underlying points of the story, but I think they get muddied in the narrative or even contradict themselves at times.

As to the structure of the story itself, I must admit that it really takes too long to get to the final act. We got the point on all the changes and how the protagonists have had to suffer, why make the reader suffer as well. And the final climax was almost too silly, again in my opinion.

Thus overall, an ok book, but one I probably won't read again. It did not live up to my memory of the book.

Fast read. I love sci-fi, I love comedy, therefore I should have enjoyed this book, I hated it. What a waste of time.
Story: Alex goes on a cruise ship, he walks on coals, he passes out, and then he finds he is in a different dimension, or world, he is now someone else, with same face, each time he starts to come to terms with this, his life changes again, he is in yet another parallel world, no money etc. etc. he meets the love of his life, only to lose her to another world. He is suppose to be a Christian minister, but has broken a lot of the commandments, and bam he is in heaven, but oh, it is no fun at all, so he goes to hell to look for his love, only to find all of his friends are there, and his love is not there at all. Then he finds it is not the devil but god who has been messing with his mind, however, even God has a boss, and then....is there an end to this madness? If you have time to waste, by all means read this book.

What is there to say about a book whose entire purpose seems to be to deconstruct Religion as the author saw it?

I suppose the easiest way to define it would be based on his literary merit. Sadly, there does not seem to be much. As a science fiction novel 1st half of this book seems to be a fairly mundane trip through the multiverse. Neither the characters nor the reader Know where they will end up next, neither do they know What the cause of their trips multiverse are caused by.

Then the rapture takes place, and the characters are whisked into an afterlife so blasphemous, Heinlein must have been aching to get out his hatred of Christianity.

My main problem lies in the disjointed nature of the storyline (not to mention the casual, repeated misogyny, in spite of the fact that several of the female characters are strong women in their own right). Everything shifts so suddenly...so jarringly... if Heinlein had wanted the second half of the story to be the main focus, the first half could have been covered in a few chapters, followed by an extended look at the post-rapture world the characters inhabit.

If this wasn't end-of-life Heinlein, I probably would have given this 2.5 stars... but his catalog of better work deserves at least a little bit of a boost.

One of those books you want to like, but can't...

The beginning is promising - a guy takes on an obviously suicidal bet, and ends up in another world (this happens by page 10 or so, so hardly counts as a spoiler)

And then... masculine imaginings galore. man leaves behind wife who doesn't like sex and meets a sexpot who's in love with him (although she was clearly in love with a person with a wildly different personality, judging by the accouterments, which doesn't bother the protagonist one bit), everyone is happy and naked and having sex left and right, and so on.

This would make for a pretty boring book all by itself, but unfortunately it was actually the best part. The rest quickly goes downhill - Alex is inconsistent, and really downright boring. His love interest is likable, but feels like a 2-dimensional cutout of the perfect woman - her depth is hinted at, but never really revealed in any meaningful way. Why she likes him at all, I don't understand either.

And he's willing to go to the ends of the earth for her, turn over heaven and hell, and wash dishes for all eternity... but it never occurs to him to direct his quest to Denmark.

The few good bits scattered here and there pull the book out of 1-star land, but that's as far as it gets.

Maybe it was a groundbreaking in 1984 when it was written, but it has not aged well. Skip it in favor of something more sensible.

God, I'd be much better of, it seems, from just giving away all the Heinlein books I've inherited and trading it in for something that doesn't make me go "ehhhhwhut?" (I would like to read some Harlan Ellison, for what's it worth)

Its just a big ol' pile of ambivalence. It WAS published in '84 so I maybe shouldn't dump on it but really?: Heaven is shiny beaurocracy? Hell is just as bad but with a lot more freedom than you'd think? Boy, what a *new* concept. JEEZ.

I was going to harp on the book for the main character being such a holy stick in the mud but that may be the only bit of cleverness to be had in this book that has been done a million times before in other works of fiction: that being such a stick in the mud was the reason he was singled out by God and Satan to be dicked with to basically be Job 2.0. I had to roll my eyes (pretty hard) when he and Margarethe had an argument about whether it was "indecent" for her to wear shorts and I had to hand it to her, she ran circles around his argument.

I'm still not sure why zeppelins where such a big deal to Alexander. I don't remember what year he said he was sort of transplanted from but it seemed to be a slightly rejiggered version of the early 1900's (a kind of overdone shorthand for "not our future or time period" seems to be zeppelins but whatever) but whatever. He just seems to lose his shit whenever he sees one. Also anachronistically, he refers to any African American as a "blackamoor". That I could have done without. >_>

The only thing I can sort of come to grips with is for a satire about religion, it didn't make me laugh once. There was nothing new in this book's brain, except maybe the end where its implied Marga wasn't in Heaven or Hell but in Valhalla (!) because she's Danish so it was Odin and Loki's department. Other than that, despite its happy ending, it was pretty tone-deaf and unfunny. And Jesus wept.

3.75
Myślę, że trochę jednak za długa. Kilkadziesiąt stron ze środka można by wywalić. No i podejście Heinleina do relacji damsko męskich jest jakie jest. Ale poza tym to całkiem, całkiem dobra reinterpretacja historii Hioba.

This book follows the journey of devout fundamentalist Christian Alex Hergensheimer (later Alec Graham) and his love Margarethe through faith-testing trials. After taking a bet to walk across hot coals, Alex's world changes completely, but only in his eyes. He and meets Margarethe, and together they survive earthquakes, shipwrecks, and more, as the world shifts again and again, often losing their clothing, possessions, and the money they worked for each time.

I was entertained by the constant world-phasing (at first), as well as the satirical aspects of the book. But I'll admit I grew tired of their vague drifting, as well as the seemingly endless changes. I read the last part of the book all at once, relieved that they were finally over! That said, the last part would have been interesting in any case. It is heavy with religious commentary (and blasphemy! But the story is too fantastical to cause any real offense), and I'm sure I would've understood more of the jokes if I knew more about theology. Nonetheless, I enjoyed reading about Alex's experiences in Heaven, Hell, and beyond. I laughed myself silly at the descriptions of the characters in each setting. However, I was disappointed in the final chapter; the story kind of lost steam there.

Heinlein was rather against organized religion, a stance quite similar to my own, and in no book is it more obvoius than Job.

Job mostly mocks organized religion and Christianity in general, but the story itself is pretty enjoyable, if not one of my favorite of Heinlein's.

The first Heinlein book I ever read. Interestingly enough, not really a sci-fi, While it deals with multiple universes, here they are more the realm of religion than of Schrodinger's Cat.

I give up. I made it to page 331, and I'm out.

The book itself:

Well done, if dated characters (very 1950's). Interesting plot if you like that sort of thing. Decent settings, and a storyline that moved along.

So why am I giving up?

The characters annoy me. Alex/Alec constantly insists that Margrethe 'obey' him, and works hard to save her soul. Yet, he also seems to expect (or at least appreciate) the sort of... preference she gets for her pretty face and good legs. Margrethe herself is a strong character, but still manages to annoy me. It is just... a dated opinion of what women are and what we can do: her strength seems to be in how sexy she is. That's it.

The message annoys me. I wish I would have read more than the blurb on the back before getting this book. I thought it was about someone caught up in time travel, and it sort of is, but at some point the 'J O B' in the title seems to refer to Alex/Alec converting Margrethe to save her soul. (NOTE: I'm such a non-christian that I did not realize JOB means.. Biblical Job. I was SOOOO the wrong audience for this work!!) Although I'm not Christian, for most of this book, it was just a sprinkling and I could overlook it (and wonder, with the characters, if the world was about to end). But somewhere near page 300 or so, it became incredibly heavy-handed. And the last part of the book is just.. outside my range of belief or interest. I can't force myself to plow forward with this.

I'm also not clear what "a comedy of justice" means. This book isn't funny. It tries to be, but it just isn't. Perhaps I needed to wait for the end for the 'justice' bit, and the comedy, to play out. After several months of slow plodding with this book, I don't care anymore.

Had a similar reaction (to the characters, anyway) of another Heinlein work. I think I'm just not a fan.